We are thankful that the much-ballyhooed anti-Charter change (Cha-cha) rally, said to have been spearheaded and encouraged by Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, did not result in violent street actions. No less than the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, together with responsible Church leaders, had appealed for peaceful
protest marches and demonstrations. Of course, the appeals are always our best hope, considering that there are always hotheads and agents provocateur in such rallies who are not content with simply mouthing slogans but often resort to more rash activities to drive home their point.

I always find it strange that many of the usual protesters have no clear idea why they are marching or why they are protesting, except that they have been reportedly paid or brainwashed by false prophets from the ranks of the opposition. The sad part is that from a peaceful march usually come violent actions which often result in  forced dispersals, usually to the delight of the media. In many past instances, opposition leaders who instigate these demonstrations are simply after publicity, but because no one can predict the unpredictable, these leaders place demonstrators in harm’s way. When things go wrong, these agitators are the first to cry violations of human rights the loudest, and by their overt acts of instigating people to violence and vandalism, they are actually the ones who want to burn the house down.

As tempting as ice cream to a dieter, many “presidentiables” took advantage of the situation and fielded their gofers bearing leaflets, flyers and campaign materials, which got the goat of some of the rally organizers, who pointedly shooed away these early campaigners, warning them to take politics out of the anti-Cha-cha rally. In all, the rally was peaceful and orderly, a gathering of politically mature citizens out to express their opinions and their thoughts in a democratic manner. This is democracy in action. This is what we have been fighting for in our lifetime.

MOSCOW—One of the most urgent problems of today’s world is the danger of nuclear weapons. The unexpected nuclear test by North Korea on May 25 and its test-firing of a series of short-range missiles is the latest, frightening reminder.

Nothing fundamentally new has been achieved in the area of nuclear disarmament in the past decade-and-a-half. Twenty years after the end of the Cold War, the arsenals of the nuclear powers still contain thousands of weapons, and the world is facing the very real possibility of a new arms race.

In effect, all that has been achieved in nuclear disarmament until now is the implementation of the agreements that were signed in the late 1980s and early 1990s: the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987, which eliminated two classes of nuclear missiles, and the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which launched the biggest cutbacks of nuclear weapons ever. Thousands of tactical nuclear weapons were destroyed in accordance with this US-Soviet agreement.

Subsequently, the pace of nuclear arms reduction has slowed and the mechanisms of control and verifications have weakened. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has not entered into force. The quantities of nuclear weapons held by Russia and the United States still far exceed the arsenals of all other nuclear powers combined, thus making it more difficult to bring them into the process of nuclear disarmament.

The nuclear nonproliferation regime is in jeopardy. While the two major nuclear powers bear the greatest responsibility for this state of affairs, it was the United States that abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty), has failed to ratify the CTBT, and refused to conclude with Russia a legally binding, verifiable treaty on strategic offensive arms.

Only recently have we seen indications that the major nuclear powers understand the current state of affairs is untenable. The presidents of the United States and Russia have agreed to conclude before the end of this year a verifiable treaty reducing strategic offensive arms and have reaffirmed their countries’ commitment to fulfill their obligations under the nonproliferation treaty. Their joint statement calls for a number of other steps to reduce nuclear dangers, including ratification by the United States of the CTBT.

THURSDAY this week was a bad-news day. The economic managers, after reassessing how the country has fared the past five months, decided to scale back the country’s growth path this year, resetting local output or the gross domestic product (GDP) to a much more modest range of 0.8 percent up to 1.8 percent. Some other quarters, though, had an even dimmer view.

The International Monetary Fund, wrapping up a staff visit, concluded through the mission’s leader Il Houng Lee there was “no way Manila would escape a contraction this year.” The multilateral agency further scaled down its growth estimate for the country from zero growth to negative 1 percent.

Elsewhere in the news, foreign direct investment saw a net outflow of $27 million in March; and a Filipino officer and education expert of the United Nations Children’s Fund, tapped to help refugees in Pakistan’s conflict area, perished in the suicide bombing at the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar.

But beyond the bad news, there are reasons to be sanguine. The latest economic briefing of the Oxford Business Group, a partner of this newspaper, strongly counsels calm, not alarm, over the low-growth landscape, saying there’s no need to panic when all circumstances are considered.

But perhaps the more sublime cause for joy, which we would like to draw attention to as matters like these often get taken for granted, are the Filipino heroes who do us proud even though they are not of the stature of a Manny Pacquiao or a Lea Salonga.

On this paper’s front page on Monday was splashed the picture of “teacher” Jean Karen Bayaborda, all of 8 years old, helping along Grade 1 pupils in a small village school in Tuy, Batangas.

Bayaborda and fellow student Nicole Ashley Basco, 9, were tapped by their teacher Rosario “Chato” Contigo to help her handle four grade levels in the school—40 pupils in all—after the only other teacher landed in hospital with broken bones that will take many months to heal.

Because the two girls are her brightest students, Ms. Contigo asked them to help out, and they did. As the article said, teaching for Miss Chato and her assistant teachers is obviously “not a chore; it is a daily mission. But for Jean Karen and Nicole, it is also the natural thing to do.”

Here’s more: “They have to walk two kilometers every day to reach the school, the Gumapak Elementary School, in barangay Talon Kanluran in the inland town of Tuy, Batangas, a third-class municipality to the mountainous west of Taal Lake.” The school “is accessible only by narrow and dusty dirt roads that become impassable on rainy days.”

It’s not as if the performance of students has suffered because of the lack of professional teachers. According to Mercedes Magnaye, head teacher of Lumbangan Elementary School, who supervises Gumapak, “Believe it or not, Gumapak is a performing school.”

It is well that the Air Force recognized the work of the teacher and her two assistants and supported the school with donations of school bags, educational supplies and slippers, and installed a ceiling fan in each of the two classrooms.

The girls’ unselfishness and willingness to work beyond the demands of duty exemplify the values taught in the Air Force, the officers said. Indeed, one is thus reminded of the unprecedented and risky mission taken by the PAF to rescue nearly 200 people stranded on rooftops in Pampanga when Typhoon Mameng’s heavy rains sent mudflows from Pinatubo swirling around them in late 1995.

One hopes the goodness of ordinary people who rise above themselves, as these two grade schoolers did, will be replicated thousands of times over—and that outside the Air Force, more people in a position to help will be put to shame for their inaction, and lengthen the kindness with their own.